


Our Days Are Numbered

by tylerfucklin (orphan_account)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Kidnapping, M/M, Permanent Injury, Physical Disability, Recovery, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 18:23:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/tylerfucklin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They didn't know, not until it was too late. The damage was done; the scars and broken bones made, and the nightmares endless. No amount of corrective surgeries and physical therapy would take away what had happened to Stiles that day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Days Are Numbered

**Author's Note:**

> Another commission down. Please take note of the tags as they list any possible triggers. :) (oh my god i went over the commissioned amount but whatever)  
> big thanks to jordana who is a PT and helped me with the details.

Derek was halfway to caving in on the Sheriff’s argument over real burgers as opposed to veggie burgers (he’d been keeping strong for three days for Stiles’ sake) when they were interrupted by the trilling of the Sheriff’s cell phone on the coffee table. The Sheriff sighed, muttering about rookies and how he shouldn’t give his number out to all the deputies on the force, and snatched it up after setting his beer down.

“Oh, it’s Stiles. Must be heading home.” The Sheriff mused with a grin. Stiles may have only been gone for half a week on some sort of pre-college ‘self-exploration vacation’, but being an only child meant his father had gotten lonely with him gone. Derek was pretty sure that he’d been used as a stand-in just until Stiles got back.

“Hey, son. How’d the trip go?” the Sheriff answered the phone cheerily, gesturing to the beer and then holding a finger to his lips to let Derek know it was their little secret. Derek nodded as a crackle came from the other end of the phone. It wasn’t a good kind of crackle--it was like a hitched and broken breath, followed by a loud wheeze that had Derek instantly sitting ramrod straight in his seat.

“Daddy?” All color drained from the Sheriff’s face, expression dropping into a look of terrified concern.

“Stiles? I’m here, son. What’s wrong?”

For a long time, Stiles didn’t answer. He just kept breathing, heavy and shallow. Derek clutched to the arm of the couch, listening to the tiny squeaking noises Stiles made as he tried to talk. He either didn’t have the energy, or he didn’t have the right words to say. The Sheriff frowned deeper, getting up and heading for the door.

“Stiles? Stiles, I need you to talk to me. Where are you? I’m going to come get you, but you have to tell me where you are.”

Derek jumped up, following instantly. If anything, there was a chance whatever happened might have been supernatural. Even if it wasn’t, there was no way Derek would be able to sit by when Stiles was hurt or in danger.

“I wanna go home, daddy,” Stiles whimpered, “I wa-wanna go home.”

“You’re gonna come home, son. You have to tell me where you are.” The Sheriff let Derek follow him to the cruiser, unlocking it and sliding into the driver’s seat while Derek got in on the other side.

“I don’t know,” another pained noise came from the phone, “I’m sorry--I don’t know. It hurts so much.”

Derek gestured, flapping his hand to try and get the phone handed over while the Sheriff peeled out of the driveway. There was a pause, but then, “It’s okay, Stiles. You’re going to be fine. I’m going to give Derek the phone now. I need you to tell him where you are, okay?”

Stiles’ voice cracked on the words, “okay.”

Taking the phone, Derek gave himself a second to find the right words before he started talking. “Stiles, it’s Derek.”

“Hi, Derek.”

“Hey,” Derek said awkwardly, “I need you to do something for me.”

“Okay.”

“I want you to close your eyes. Try not to think about the pain. What do you smell?”

“Blood,” Stiles muttered, “puke.”

Derek’s gut wrenched, free hand curling into a fist on his knee. It was only a small saving grace that Stiles’ father couldn’t hear the conversation as he drove them towards the highway exit--heading for where Stiles’ last known destination was. “Okay, but _what else_? Do you smell gasoline? Old wood? What does the building smell like to you?”

“Nnh,” Stiles hiccuped on a sob, dragging in slow, wet-sounding breaths through his nose. “Mold. I can’t... it’s too dark. I smell mold.”

“What do you hear?”

“Creaking... I--I heard a siren earlier. I think th-there’s a fire station nearby.”

“Good, that’s good, Stiles. That’s great. So you’re somewhere inside, somewhere old, and you’re near a fire station. Can you get to a window?”

Silence. A long, pained silence that had Derek tensing up all over again and his heart ratcheting up in his chest. “Stiles?”

“My legs are broken,” Stiles whispered, “I can’t move one of them.”

Cringing, and wishing desperately that he could find the ones responsible right now and kill them where they were standing, Derek clenched his jaw. “Can you crawl?”

“I’ll try,” Stiles breathed, followed immediately by the sound of rustling. Derek counted the seconds in his head, hearing every shift and quiet sob that Stiles made as he dragged himself towards a window. There was coughing, and then retching sounds as Stiles heaved in pain and then groaned loudly. It felt like an eternity before he was talking again.

“Derek?”

“I’m here.”

“There’s a...nnh... there’s a fire station down the road. I’m... I can’t read any street signs, but I’m in a house. I don’t know where it is.”

“That’s okay, it’s fine.” Derek assured, mind already moving a mile a minute. “Can you pull up the GPS on your phone?” It was a stupid question, technically, because Stiles used it all the time when they went somewhere out of town. The problem was that he sounded halfway dead and Derek _really_ didn’t want to get off the phone with him if he could help it. Stiles wheezed, but from the sound of clicking, Derek hoped he was trying to access the GPS while in a call.

“One-one-five-one-six,” Stiles muttered, “Chestnut Lane, Beacon Hills.”

“Shit,” Derek cursed, pulling the phone away, “turn around. He’s in Beacon Hills.”

The Sheriff echoed his curse, already switching lanes in search of the nearest exit so that they could turn around. The siren was wailing, lights flashing as they careened down the road.

“...I don’t think...I ever left,” Stiles admitted quietly, sounding so broken that it made something deep inside of Derek twist with guilt. Stiles had never made it out of the city. While Derek and the others had been spending the past three days going on with their lives, Stiles had been hidden away somewhere and tortured within an inch of his life.

Fuck, he was a shitty alpha and an even shittier boyfriend. How could he not have sensed this? How had it gone on this long without him realizing something was up? Stiles must have been waiting and hoping every day that the pack would notice his lack of communication, but they’d all just assumed the seclusion was part of his little personal vacation before the fall semester started. Derek had even told Scott not to worry about it because, knowing Stiles, he was probably just sightseeing and spending most of his time at internet cafes.

Only no, he hadn’t been. He’d spent that entire time locked up in a house somewhere in the city and abused within an inch of his life. 

“We’re coming for you, Stiles. Don’t worry,” Derek promised, “just hold on a little longer, okay?”

It was sickening how close Stiles’ location was to the BHPD. Two blocks down had them turning into a tiny parking lot of a run down office building that had seen better days. Stiles’ breathing was labored on the other line, broken intermittently by snuffling and soft, wet coughs. “We’re here,” Derek breathed, “Stiles, we’re just outside. You gotta give us a few minutes to find you, but we’re here.”

A slamming door was his answer, and then Stiles crying out, “they’re back, they’re back,” and hanging up without another word.

“Fuck,” Derek spat, throwing his door open and shoving his phone into his pocket. “They’re back. We need to get up there right now.”

“Derek, wait,” Sheriff called out, hand hovering the radio. “I need to call this in.”

“Are you fucking _serious_ right now?” Derek threw his hands out, claws threatening to tear the paint job off of the roof of the cruiser when his answer was a frown.

“If I call this in, we can get back up. This isn’t something for the pack, Derek. This is my _son_ , and I sure as hell want to make sure those bastards pay for what they’ve done... but we have to do this my way.”

When Derek didn’t snap or snarl right away, the Sheriff took it as incentive to page dispatch through his CB, listing off the location, the time of Stiles’ phone call, and that there was more than one hostile waiting for them. As soon as he put the walkie down, Derek was shutting his door and making a beeline for the entrance. The Sheriff hurried after him, gun ready and face grim.

Derek followed the sound of two strong heartbeats and Stiles’ weak, rapid one up two flights of stairs. He could hear Stiles’ father trying to keep up, the radio on his shoulder turned down to an almost inaudible volume as they stopped outside the room where Derek could _hear_ Stiles groaning in pain as he was interrogated by a man and woman.

It killed Derek to have to wait outside the door that read, “Dr. Valdez; Family Care & Psychiatry”, because he could have been breaking the door down and saving Stiles from any more pain instead of having to do nothing until backup arrived. It made sense that no one had made any calls in the past week about questionable sounds coming from within. A psychiatrist’s office was one of the few places where crying and yelling would be overlooked as understandable to any passerby.

That was when he heard the sound of Stiles sobbing. It wasn’t the normal kind that came with crying after a stressful day or when a pet had died. It was a series of long, drawn out cries full of agony that only ended when Stiles choked on his own breath and would cough painfully.

Derek reached out, wanting to break the knob off and claw the door down, but the Sheriff’s hand on his shoulder kept him tethered enough to pull back. The man’s face was pale, lips thin in a way that showed he had also heard the sounds within. They only had to wait a little longer.

“Motherfucker,” Stiles’ voice was garbled and barely audible as he cursed his attackers. There was a crunch and a scream that had Derek recoiling into the Sheriff’s shoulder.

“We’re not the ones killing our own kind, are we? Are you even human anymore? You’ve got a death wish, that’s for sure. Ever think about how much better life would be without the wolves? You’d be home safe and sound, for one.”

Hearing the sound of footsteps pounding up the stairs was something Derek never thought he’d fall in love with, but he did--especially when it was coupled with the rustle and clicking of guns being drawn and ready as the Sheriff’s crew finally made it to their floor. Derek didn’t even hesitate, pushing himself away from the Sheriff and breaking the door down with one powerful kick.

He didn’t want to think about how, if Stiles had been there with Derek, he’d have laughed endlessly about Derek’s similarities to a certain Die Hard character.

Stiles was on his stomach, one arm behind him and a female hunter standing on top of it, the heel of her boot grinding into his elbow and forcing it at a painful angle. One hand was on her hip and the other was holding some sort of short whip covered in barbed wire and caked in dried blood. Derek didn’t have to look long to see the whip marks of varying severity covering Stiles’ body. The other hunter was hovering, obviously caught in a state of relaxation with his arms crossed and a blowtorch dangling casually from his hand.

The seared, bubbled flesh along Stiles’ face and parts of his body were proof that there was anything _but_ casuality about it.

The parts of Stiles’ face unmarred by wounds or blood showed that he was turning red from lack of oxygen, cheeks wet with tears with snot smeared over his upper lip. There was drool coming from his mouth, pooling on the floor because he was too busy making tiny, pained noises to even swallow back his saliva.

Derek had to dig his claws into his own palm just to keep from vomiting then and there.

Instead of attacking, Derek reached into his pocket for his wallet, flipping it out so that his badge was the first thing they saw. Technically, he was still in the volunteer training stage, but it was enough to get the hunters to freeze when he boomed, “ _Beacon Hills PD! Put your weapons down!_ ”

The reaction wasn’t instantaneous--the hunters had obviously been expecting anything other than the actual police force busting the doors down. The woman let the crop fall to the ground, foot lifting from Stiles’ back as she moved away from his shaking body. It was another second before she seemed to recognize Derek, because her eyes locked with his and her upper lip pulled back into a tiny sneer.

From next to her, the man holding the blowtorch went utterly still, face blank as he looked on at the practical arsenal of cops pointing guns at him. “Are you fucking kidding me,” he snapped flatly, hand fidgeting over the handle of the torch.

“Put the weapon down and put your hands behind your head,” the Sheriff barked, hands steady on his pistol. The man sighed, letting the blowtorch fall to the ground and bringing his arms up behind his head.

As soon as his captors were a handful of feet away and the deputies were flooding forward to cuff them, Stiles dragged in a pained, shuddering breath of relief. Derek and the Sheriff rushed forward, both kneeling on either side of him and both hesitant to even move him.

“Someone call an ambulance,” the Sheriff commanded sharply to his men.

“Already done, sir,” came the response from a nearby deputy as they made sure to be as rough as possible when snapping the cuffs onto the female hunter. She hissed, jerking and finding herself shoved roughly into a wall as they commanded her to keep still or suffer the consequences.

“Daddy,” Stiles mewled, tears slipping from his eyes the second that his father reached out to shakily brush a palm over his head. Derek curled his hands into fists, resting them on his thighs and wishing desperately there was something he could do besides sit there like an idiot.

“Hey big guy, it’s gonna be okay. I’m here, all right? The ambulance is coming and you’re gonna be fine.”

“Nnh,” Stiles shook his head, slowly and like it took the last of his energy to do so. A tiny wheeze left him, like it hurt just to exhale, and he twitched the hand of the one arm that didn’t look horrifically mangled. Derek couldn’t tear his eyes away from the wounds--the mutilated flesh where he’d been burned on his face, his head and shoulders and all the way down to his bare feet with six broken toes. He stank of body fluids--blood, vomit and urine--and there was a terrifying stillness to his lower half that had Derek praying the ambulance would arrive soon.

“I’m so sorry,” Derek choked, shakily reaching out and setting his hand against Stiles’ forehead. Stiles settled a little, like the contact from his father and his boyfriend was enough to keep him at ease against his pain. “I should have known, I--I should have sensed something.”

“S’okay,” Stiles mumbled, breathing wetly as his eyes rolled about for a second before he could focus them on Derek. “Y’did good.”

“Son, I know talking is your thing, but you really need to save that energy,” the Sheriff muttered, snuffling back tears and leaning in to press his lips against Stiles’ temple. “I can’t lose you, so hold on for me, okay?”

“...kay,” Stiles mumbled weakly, eyes falling shut. He didn’t sleep or pass out--Derek could tell by his heartbeat and the way he still struggled to breathe through his pain-- but he practically shut down everything else in the face of trying to keep himself alive until the ambulance arrived.

Derek had a sinking feeling that this was only the beginning of the torture, that Stiles had months of hell before him once the doctors gave him a diagnosis and the sheer amount of damage was properly evaluated.

\--

Despite everything that had happened, no one had truly predicted the extent of Stiles’ injuries--even after he was in the hospital and through his first round of surgery. Derek was used to healing, he was used to Stiles bouncing back and grimacing through the pain. What he wasn’t used to, were words like ‘trauma’ and ‘physical therapy’ and ‘skin grafting’. Half of the things the doctors told them, Derek ended up having to research to even _fathom_ what Stiles was going through.

Mild paralysis from a fractured vertebrae, swollen limbs from his broken ankle and toes, extensive loss of mobility from a fractured femur, respiratory therapy as a result of cracked ribs, and damage to the tendons in his right arm and wrist that left Stiles’ hand practically frozen in a permanent claw-like position.

All of that was enough to make Derek want to give anything to fix him, but it was the tip of the iceberg. Stiles couldn’t even go through half the required physical therapy for the first six weeks after they’d found him, not when he couldn’t even get out of bed. There were burn scars all along his back and limbs, but the worst had been his face--ones that the doctors had tried to reduce by grafting skin from his back over half of the mutilated remains. Just looking at Stiles made Derek sick, because he was responsible for every scar and every ache and pain that now plagued his boyfriend and packmate.

In the time it had taken them to get Stiles through the first stages of healing, even more trauma started to show itself in the form of PTSD. There had been more than one time where the Sheriff or Derek had been called after one of Stiles’ flashbacks, that Stiles refused to be in a room warmer than sixty degrees and that any clicking or snapping noises had the potential to trigger a panic attack.

Despite it all, Stiles still struggled his way through physical therapy, still kept vigilant against taking too much morphine or other painkillers for fear of addiction, and still tried to smile on days that Derek looked at him with nothing but guilt.

At first, Stiles had been more than excited when they finally told him he was well enough to start his first day of walking PT. That cheer had only lasted him as long as it took to realize the damage in his hand made it twice as hard to grip the parallel bars, and that only one of his feet had enough feeling in it for him to keep it straight. They’d worked his hand as much as possible in the six weeks of healing, but Stiles still struggled to do even the simplest tasks with it. Derek tried every day to come by when he could, but it was harder with each day that Stiles ceased to improve.

“He’s doing amazing,” the trainers told him, even on days that the slam of a door had Stiles flinching and struggling for air. He had two therapists, a skinny man who stank of false cheer, and a young woman who tried endlessly to push Stiles as hard as possible in hopes that he’d recover faster. They were the people Stiles confided in when the pain and guilt were too much for Derek or his father to bear. They were also the people Stiles hated almost as much as his torturers, because they caused him the same amount of pain with each training session. Derek usually avoided sessions, if he could, because most of the time it involved Stiles struggling, screaming, and either failing or collapsing from the pain--and each second of it was like digging a knife into Derek’s gut and whispering, _‘you did this’_.

Sometimes when Derek visited, it felt like his only purpose was to stop Stiles from picking at his stitches, or to just hold him as best he could when the spasms started. Other days, Stiles would lay in bed after a stressful session, eyes heavy on painkillers or sedatives, and he would cling to Derek’s fingers with his working hand and just _talk_.

“I miss running,” he’d say, blinking up at the television playing reruns of some old cartoon. “I miss video games... I miss my bed. I miss pizza. I miss sex.”

Each time, Derek could do nothing but squeeze his hand and watch Stiles roll his head to look up mournfully at his boyfriend and admit things like, “I’m sorry we can’t have sex anymore.”

Derek always told him, without fail, that it was okay, that, “as long as you’re alive, it doesn’t matter.”

This time was different, because Stiles didn’t shrug and look away. He kept watching Derek, scarred mouth pinching into a scowl. His hand tightened around Derek’s, let go, and then squeezed again as Stiles muttered, “Does too. I look like a troll, dude. When was the last time we kissed?”

Derek didn’t want to tell Stiles he felt unworthy and undeserving of affection, because this wasn’t about him. It was about Stiles--and whatever Stiles wanted or needed, Derek would bend over backwards to get for him. He shook his head, reaching out to curl his fingers over Stiles’ cheek--flesh jagged and rough from so much plastic surgery-- and kissed him. Stiles let out a happy, contented sigh into their lips, mouth parting enough to let Derek know just how much he’d missed it all. Derek didn’t stop, tongue swiping under Stiles’ top lip the way he liked, and then nuzzling at his mouth when he felt the telltale shake of aching and weak muscles being overtaxed.

Pulling away, Derek watched Stiles slump against the bed with a happy glow in his cheeks that hadn’t been there in months. He sat on the edge of the bed, running his fingers through Stiles’ hair and watching his eyes droop lower and lower until he finally dozed off.

Derek never thought his proudest moments would be the ones where he could help Stiles get some restful hours, but that was what his life had become.

 

Stiles was barely improving in some ways more than others. His right arm was practically useless in terms of mobility, and even after four months of surgeries and physical therapy, he couldn’t walk on his own and even use of the parallel bars was a challenge. They said his ankles were too weak, that they couldn’t support him more than a few feet, and that it was only one of many problems with why he was confined to use of a wheelchair instead of a walker or cane. Weeks in recovery had taken it’s toll in the form of swollen, weak limbs that weren’t ready to carry their own weight, much less Stiles’ whole body.

Half of this, Derek only knew because Stiles liked to rant at his trainers, and didn’t care who was there to listen.

“...and you’d think the doctors would be like, hey, maybe we should keep that tube in your dick since you’re kind of half-cripple and _obviously_ it’s going to be really fucking hard for you to get to the bathroom to take a piss, but no, they just like to wait until like, right after I piss all over myself in that crappy wheelchair before coming in to help.” Stiles heaved for breath, oblivious to Derek hovering the doors to the PT center. One of his trainers, Judy, was walking backwards as Stiles tried to walk on the parallel bars towards her, while Roger stayed behind him with a hand under the elbow of Stiles’ bad arm as a support.

“You’re not the only patient they have to take care of,” Judy pointed out gently, making a coaxing motion with her hands when Stiles began to shake from exertion.

“That’s great, make me feel like an asshole. You know, it would probably be better if you just put me out of my misery now instead of wasting all this time and money. I’m like a bad show on Fox that needs to be cancelled. You know my boyfriend hasn’t gotten laid since I landed myself in here? It’s like, I wanna say I’m sorry but I kind of can’t because at least he’s not the one stuck in here every day. I think my dad never goes home anymore; he’s always here or at work. God, I suck.”

“You’re doing great, Stiles,” Roger pointed out, “you’ve already come a long way.”

“I wanna go home,” Stiles blurted, choking on his words and sucking in a sharp breath. “I wanna go home. I want my bed, I want to share it with Derek. I wanna wake up to my dad’s waffles, I wanna get in trouble for not doing my laundry, I wanna stay up late and wake up cold because I forgot to close my window. I want--” Stiles cut himself off with a pained noise, crying out when his arm finally quit working and he crumpled forward faster than either trainer could catch him.

He hit the ground with a shout, curling up instinctively as Roger and Judy hurried to help him back up. “No!” Stiles screamed, jerking away as best he could. “Don’t touch me! Leave me alone!”

They hovered, hands ready to help as Stiles bit back a sob, body quivering when he tried to push himself up. His voice grew hoarse, words becoming incomprehensible through his cries. His face turned red, bad arm curled up into his chest and his entire body heaving with each agonized scream he let out--like he was trying to shout away all of his inner demons and pain.

Derek hated sitting there, hated hovering and waiting for Stiles to calm down, but he knew forcing himself into the situation would just upset Stiles even more. It had happened a few times--when the frustration and anxiety and pain all became too much and burst out of him in a flood of emotions-- and Derek had a feeling that this was one of the only ways Stiles was able to cope with his recovery sometimes.

It didn’t take long for Stiles to burn himself out, shaking and wiping at his face while Roger and Judy helped him up and into his wheelchair. Stiles kept his head low, letting himself be carted away from the parallel bars for some downtime. “Can I go back to my room?” he asked, voice small.

Frowning sympathetically, Judy shook her head. “You still have another hour left, but we’ll give you some time before we start again, okay?”

When Stiles sighed and slumped down, they took it as his approval. Judy pushed him towards Derek, smiling at him and turning Stiles so that Derek could take the handles if he wanted. Derek ignored her, reaching out to run his hand through Stiles’ hair. Stiles relaxed a tiny bit, leaning into Derek’s palm and then tilting his head back to blink tearily up at him.

“Hi.”

“Hi, Derek answered, bending down and kissing Stiles on the forehead. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small bag from the gift shop. “I brought you some candy.”

Instantly, Stiles perked up. He twisted his head around, trying to peer at the bag and then giving Derek a dirty look when he realized they were Swedish Fish. Stiles, technically, wasn’t supposed to have _any_ candy, but after sneaking in a few types on different occasions, they found out Swedish Fish was the least likely to upset his stomach.

Derek shook the bag and grinned, which was enough to get Stiles’ grouchy look off of his face. Popping open the bag, Derek tilted it for Stiles to grab some. When Stiles reached out with his good hand, Derek pulled away slowly. “Try the other hand,” he asked gently, knowing he had to do his share somehow in helping Stiles recover.

The hateful glower from Stiles was halfhearted, at most. He huffed, shakily lifting up his bad hand and trying to reach into the bag. His pinky wouldn’t move in enough that Stiles was able to stop it from catching on the edge, so Derek shifted the bag enough for Stiles to manage on the third try. He withdrew two candies, mouth curling into a tiny, pleased expression. Derek grinned when Stiles handed him one of the sweets, chest swelling with pride.

They ate the candy in silence, Stiles managing five of them before he started to look sick from all the sugar. Derek folded up the bag, tucking it into his jacket pocket and leaning down to steal candy-flavored kiss from Stiles. “I’ve gotta get back, but I’ll be around for dinner. Your dad’s trying to get a search warrant out for a few contacts of those hunters who might be involved with some humans from other packs that have been hurt or killed.”

For a second, Stiles seemed pleased and content, but his expression clouded over almost immediately. “Sucks that they couldn’t have been caught sooner.”

Not for the first time, Derek had nothing to say. He sighed, pressing his lips to Stiles’ temple. “I’ll be by for dinner. Your dad is going to be over around lunch time, okay?”

Stiles shrugged in that curt, listless way that he did when his mood was soured. Derek ignored it, running the back of his knuckles over Stiles’ cheek like that could somehow cheer him up. When he got no response, Derek frowned and added, “I love you,” even though it wasn’t something they exchanged that often. Stiles nodded, looking up at Derek and giving him a little smile. It wasn’t much, but Derek took what he could get.

 

Stiles was watching television when Derek came by that evening. He was there a little earlier than necessary, mostly because there wasn’t any work left to do at the station and Stiles’ behavior when he’d left had been unsettling. Stiles didn’t even acknowledge Derek’s entrance, nestled in bed with his right hand subconsciously curled into his chest while he drummed his good one along the edge of the remote control. 

Shucking his jacket and dropping it along the back of the only chair in the room, Derek went to sit on the bed next to Stiles. “Hey,” he greeted, making sure to bend down and give Stiles a proper greeting kiss. Everything was a little tentative at the moment, but at least now he knew that Stiles still needed him for something--even if it was just companionship. “I’m taking the exam next week to join the force. Your dad’s got a few openings for some deputies.”

Stiles jerked his head to stare at Derek with a look of mild surprise. He grinned weakly. “That’s...good. Really good. You need something else to do besides being stuck here with me.”

Derek frowned. “I want to be here.”

“Well... you shouldn’t,” Stiles pointed out, like it was some sort of irrefutable fact.

“Stiles.” Derek reached out, wanting to hold Stiles’ hand or maybe even his entire arm, just to reassure him and try and dispel that negativity, but Stiles wrenched away with a grimace.

“I gotta pee,” he muttered, shuffling to push himself from the bed and slide into his wheelchair situated close by. Derek could tell by the pinched expression in his face and the tightness in his jaw that the movement was painful, and it made his heart ache.

“Need any help?”

“No, I don’t need your fucking help!” Stiles barked, hands spasming on the wheels while he slowly rolled his way towards the bathroom. “Stop asking!”

“Sorry.”

“And don’t apologize, either! I’m so sick of it! Jesus,” Stiles heaved for a second, leaning back in his wheelchair to catch his breath. Derek didn’t know what to do, at a loss as to how he should act, and stood there like an idiot while his boyfriend struggled to regain his composure.

Bitterly, Stiles shook his head and hissed, “just leave.”

“We haven’t even had dinner yet.” Derek pointed out.

“Then have dinner with someone else!”

“Who else would I have it with?” There were a lot of people Derek could, in theory, have dinner with. He sometimes ate with the Sheriff, and often with the pack, but he knew that’s not what Stiles meant, and he wasn’t going to let Stiles think like that--because there’s no one else that Derek _wanted_ to have dinner with.

Staring blankly ahead, Stiles pushed himself slowly towards the bathroom. “Someone who’s not a cripple, maybe,” he uttered. All patience inside of Derek snapped like a wire stretched taut.

With a lurch, Derek grabbed the back of Stiles’ wheelchair and pulled so that Stiles was forced to face him. “Don’t say that,” he snarled, “don’t _ever_ say that!”

“It’s my body! I can say whatever the fuck I want about it!” Stiles protested.

“That doesn’t make it true!” Derek wanted to grab Stiles by the shoulder and shake all of the negativity out of him, but he settled for clenching his fists until they shook.

“It IS true, Derek! Are you blind? Are you some kind of idiot? Or are you just fucking someone on the side so all of this--” Stiles gestured around them, “--is a little more bearable?”

Recoiling, Derek felt anger surge up inside of him. More than anything, he wished he could yell and scream like the used to during their fights, but at the same time, he knew that none of this was their fault. The therapy stressed Stiles out, as did the constant pain and the fact that he was practically trapped inside the hospital almost constantly. There wasn’t much that could be done when Stiles had no other way to deal with his frustration.

“You know I wouldn’t do that.” Derek said softly, pulling away from the wheelchair so that Stiles didn’t feel so caged.

“Yeah? Well maybe you should.”

When Derek answered him with silence, Stiles curled his good hand into a fist and slammed it against the arm of his chair. “Just get out. I don’t want you here anymore. I hate seeing your face every day. I hate when you come in here and act like it’s going to be okay and it isn’t. You think it’s funny, carrying me around like some kind of doll or whatever? It’s not, it’s shitty, it’s _really_ shitty. So just do us both a favor and leave.”

Maybe if Derek were a stronger person, he’d leave, but he wasn’t. He was weak and dependant and he knew from both Roger and Judy that some of Stiles’ better days were the ones that Derek was there for him. They said he would light up sometimes when Derek’s name was mentioned, and that he constantly spoke of the guilt that came with being unable to participate in all relationship aspects with him anymore.

Even without that knowledge, there was no way Derek could walk away. He was in too deep, and to pull back would be like losing a limb. He stood there, palms open and chest hurting with the way Stiles turned from him and wheeled himself into the bathroom, slamming the door shut.

Feeling useless for the fifth time that day, Derek busied himself with opening the window, going so far as to fix Stiles’ sheets and try to fluff his pillow. He grabbed the remote, changing the channel to something less depressing than the Lifetime movies that Stiles had become obsessed with. Once done with all that, Derek glanced around and then took a seat next to the bed, stealing Stiles’ current book of choice and flipping open to the first page.

He was on the fifth page when the bathroom door opened and Stiles wheeled himself out. He didn’t look up, but noted the upkick in Stiles’ heartbeat.

“Why are you still here?” Stiles asked, voice shaking like he either wanted to cry or was trying not to.

“No,” Derek said, flipping to page six.

“No what? What does that even mean? No, you don’t want to leave? Unlike me, you can drive, you know. It’s not that hard. Just walk out the door and don’t ever come back. I said I don’t want you here anymore.”

Derek looked up from the book, locking eyes with Stiles--who seemed so weak and frail with how he curled himself into his wheelchair when he was stressed out. It only strengthened his resolve, and he shut the book with a loud snap.

“No.”

When Stiles looked ready to implode from frustration, Derek added, “I’m not leaving you,” and stood up. “I don’t care if you hate me for the rest of your life and you want me dead. I’m staying.”

Stiles’ face crossed through a myriad of expressions, hands shaking on the wheels of his chair before his breath hitched on a sob and he gasped out, “you asshole,” before tears began to spill from his eyes.

Derek crossed over to his side, ignoring the way Stiles weakly pushed at him, and threw his arms around Stiles’ shoulders as best he could. “It’s okay,” he promised, lips pressed into Stiles’ flushed temple. “We’ll be okay. It’ll get better. It might not be perfect, but you have me, and you have your dad and Scott. You’ve got _all_ of us, and we know you can do this.”

Sighing miserably, Stiles sniffed and scrubbed at his face with the back of his good wrist. “You suck at pep talks,” he said shakily, body wracked with tremors and whimpering when the movement of crying hurt him too much.

Derek stroked his hair, whispering, “I know, I’m sorry,” even though it wasn’t really the bad pep talks that he was sorry for. It was for everything; that he couldn’t save Stiles, that the bite didn’t fix previous damage, that Stiles was in constant pain, that the nightmares came daily and that Stiles might never walk normally again. He was sorry for a lot of things, but in that moment, Derek was sure that the one thing he’d never feel sorry for was the decision to stay at Stiles’ side for however long it took and longer.


End file.
